26th.

Thanksgiving day in town, at 39.1 Fourteen at table, a pretty show of descendants.

27th. Mrs.

Dined with T. at his "Parsonage," to meet She was rather savage on America, as usual. The very word seems to rouse all her antagonism, and makes her say uncivil, though often very true, things to our disadvantage.

29th. Drove to town to hear church.

at Mr. Gannett's

Before the services I seemed to see Channing's pale face rise in the pulpit, and thought of the text, "Though one should rise from the dead." I think has found his true vocation, for he preaches with heart and unction.

December 2. Soft as spring. I begin a new poem, ' Priscilla;' to be a kind of Puritan pastoral; the subject, the courtship of Miles Standish. This, I think, will be a better treatment of the subject than the dramatic one I wrote some time ago. Sundry people call: Mr. A., and with him Sir Charles Fox, who built the Crystal Palace in London, after Paxton's plans, and was knighted therefor, and his son. Then came a young English clergyman, — introduced by Mrs. Stowe, who was for a while chaplain of a regiment before Sebastopol.

3d. My poem is in hexameters, an idyl of the Old Colony times. What it will turn out I do not know; but it gives me pleasure to write it; and that I count for something.

4th. Met Whittier at the publisher's. He grows milder and mellower, as does his poetry.

11th. Nothing can be more splendid than these winter mornings before the sun is up. From my window I saw to-day the great oriflamme of dawn, blown by the morn

1 39 Beacon Street was Mr. N. Appleton's residence.

2 Thomas Appleton had taken a house in Cambridge previously occupied by a clergyman.

ing wind, and in its field of gold a silver crescent and a

silver star.

17th. F. reads us a chapter from Thackeray's new novel, The Virginians; full of life.

21st. Greater splendor than ever; a perfect day, the air cool and delicious. Dined with the Atlantic Monthly people; a very sumptuous game dinner at Porter's in North Cambridge; Lowell, Emerson, Holmes, Quincy, Parkman, E. H., and the publishers.

28th. Drove to Watertown. Walked back, and stopped at Mt. Auburn, where great abominations are going on in the way of cutting down trees. All the hill of pines near the gates is cleared away!

29th. Work a little at 'Priscilla.' Toward evening, walk in a gently falling snow, under the shaded lamp of the moon.

CHAPTER XIV.

JOURNAL AND LETTERS.

1858.

Faraary 1. A letter from Miss Nightingale, thanking ne for 'Santa Filomena,' and sending a photograph of her sister Florence, from a drawing of her own. Also, two others: one, of the "lady with a lamp," in the hospital at Scutari; the other, a symbolic lily. In town see Sumner and bring him out to dinner. A brilliant moon rises, and I walk on the eastern piazza and meditate on many things. And so ends the first day.

5th. Dined at Howe's in South Boston. The omnibus rattling and reeling to and fro; an old lady in black with silver-bowed spectacles; in getting out the horses start; she staggers back, then pitches forward, and exclaims, “Oh! I feel as if I had taken my bitters!"

8th. Go to see the collection of engravings given by Mr. Frank Gray to the college, and have a very delightful morning in the snug alcove.

9th. Evening at home, reading Montaigne. How like Emerson! - and how much Emerson owes to him! But the New Englander is more poetical than the Gascon.

12th. A day of almost incredible beauty, sunny and warm and sweet. The birds are singing; but I cannot even do that, so beautiful is the day. The evening filled with calls from young collegians and others.